NCAA Scores 2023: March Madness Bracket, Schedule After Men's First Four Results

The Arizona State Sun Devils and Fairleigh Dickinson Knights used blowout victories to advance out of the First Four in the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

Wednesday's victories in Dayton, Ohio, will likely be the easiest results both teams achieve in March Madness.

Arizona State knocked out the Nevada Wolf Pack with a 98-73 win in which it jumped out to a 27-point halftime advantage.

Bobby Hurley's Sun Devils set up a No. 6-versus-No. 11 clash in the West region against the TCU Horned Frogs on Friday.

Fairleigh Dickinson won a battle of No. 16 seeds against the Texas Southern Tigers. FDU faces the ultimate challenge for a team of its size against Zach Edey and the Purdue Boilermakers in the East region.

Wednesday First Four Scores

No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson 84, No. 16 Texas Southern 61

No. 11 Arizona State 98, No. 11 Nevada 73

Make your picks: Play the NCAA March Madness Men's Bracket Challenge and Tournament Run.

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NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Bracket

Watch March Madness Live to stream every tournament game through the Final Four.

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Arizona State Blows Out Nevada, Sets Up Clash with TCU

Arizona State was the far better at-large team on the floor at UD Arena on Wednesday.

The Sun Devils annihilated the Nevada defense from the jump.

They shot 63.6 percent from the field and 52.4 percent from three-point range to earn their second First Four win of Hurley's tenure.

Five Sun Devils players got into double figures, while only three Nevada players had over 10 points.

The loss was a continuation of Nevada's end-of-season struggles. The Wolf Pack finished on a four-game losing streak.

Arizona State advanced to play TCU in Denver on Friday night. The Sun Devils will try to extend the run of at-large teams to win one game after Dayton. An at-large team won at least one game after the First Four since the expansion to 68 teams in 2011. Arizona State beat the St. John's Red Storm in the First Four in 2019, but then it lost to the Buffalo Bulls in the first round.

TCU has one of the best backcourt playmakers in the country in Mike Miles, but it might struggle inside against an Arizona State defense that entered Wednesday ranked sixth in two-point defense on KenPom.

The Horned Frogs rank 340th in KenPom's three-point metric, so it may have trouble at the start breaking down the Sun Devils defense inside the three-point line.

Jamie Dixon's team does come into the tournament off a tougher schedule in the Big 12, and that may help it with whatever pressure is thrown at it by the Sun Devils.

The winner of that contest likely faces a difficult second-round title against the third-seeded Gonzaga Bulldogs.

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FDU Advances to Play Purdue

FDU received a double-digit scoring output from all five of its starters to take down Texas Southern.

The Knights went up 16 at halftime and sustained that lead for most of the second half against the SWAC tournament champion.

Sophomore forward Ansley Almonor led the Knights with 23 points and eight rebounds. Those totals likely will not be the same against Purdue.

FDU is the smallest team in Division I, and that does not bode well for its matchup against the 7'4" Edey.

The National Player of the Year candidate thrived against average-sized teams in the Big Ten, so the damage he could enact on FDU's small front line could be brutal.

FDU's path to being competitive on Friday is to try to draw Edey out of the paint, like it did against Texas Southern's big men.

The Knights have to match their 40.7 percent three-point output and pressure the heck out of Purdue's young guards to create turnovers and put the No. 1 seed in an uncomfortable position.

Even if FDU executes its backcourt game plan to perfection, it may still lose by double figures because of Edey's offensive potential. FDU's forwards have to avoid foul trouble so that the game does not get out of hand before halftime.

Purdue will try to feed Edey early and often so that it is rested for a tough second-round matchup against either the Memphis Tigers or Florida Atlantic Owls.